Town hall Thursday to tackle proposed City Charter amendments

San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg, seen on Sept. 13, 2018, will be a panelist at a town hall discussion Thursday on three proposed City Charter amendments.

San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg, seen on Sept. 13, 2018, will be a panelist at a town hall discussion Thursday on three proposed City Charter amendments.

Photo: Marvin Pfeiffer /Staff Photographer

Photo: Marvin Pfeiffer /Staff Photographer

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San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg, seen on Sept. 13, 2018, will be a panelist at a town hall discussion Thursday on three proposed City Charter amendments.

San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg, seen on Sept. 13, 2018, will be a panelist at a town hall discussion Thursday on three proposed City Charter amendments.

Photo: Marvin Pfeiffer /Staff Photographer

Town hall Thursday to tackle proposed City Charter amendments

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Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Chris Steele, local fire union president, will discuss the three proposed amendments to the City Charter on November’s ballot during a town hall meeting Thursday.

Francine Romero, the associate dean for the College of Public Policy at the University of Texas at San Antonio, will moderate the event, which includes former San Antonio City Attorney Frank Garza, a lawyer and lecturer of municipal law at St. Mary’s University.

The event, sponsored by the San Antonio Express-News and UTSA, will be in the UTSA Buena Vista Theater at the university’s downtown campus at 7 p.m. Doors close at 6:45 p.m.

While the event is free and open to the public, space is limited and an RSVP is recommended to secure a seat. To RSVP, go to mySA.com/townhall. Guests who aren’t preregistered may still attend as seating permits.

On Nov. 6, voters will decide whether to adopt the three amendments placed on the ballot through a half-million-dollar petition campaign funded by the San Antonio Professional Fire Fighters Association.

City and community leaders have said that the amendments would have devastating impacts on municipal government and San Antonio residents by creating warfare between neighborhoods, making capital projects more expensive and killing the local economy, among other things.

Steele and his allies contend that the amendments are devised to strip power from City Hall and return it to voters.

In May, a political action committee — later renamed Secure San Antonio’s Future — was formed to oppose the amendments.

The ballot language for the three proposed charter amendments

Proposition A: Shall the City Charter be amended to expand the types of ordinances that may be subject to referendum including appropriation of money, levying a tax, granting a franchise, fixing public utility rates, zoning and rezoning of property; and to increase the number of days within which a petition may be filed seeking a referendum on an ordinance passed by Council from forty to one hundred eighty days after passage of the ordinance; and to provide that no more than twenty thousand signatures of registered voters are required for a referendum petition instead of ten percent of those electors qualified to vote at the last regular municipal election?

Proposition B: Shall the City Charter be amended to limit the term the City Manager may serve to no longer than eight years, and to limit the compensation of the City Manager to no more than ten times the annual salary furnished to the lowest paid full-time city employee, and to require a supermajority vote of City Council to appoint the City Manager?

Proposition C: Shall the City Charter be amended to provide the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 624 with unilateral authority to require the City to participate in binding arbitration of all issues in dispute with the Association within forty-five days of the City’s receipt of the Association’s written arbitration request?